By Naeisha Rose
SmartAsset, a financial technology company, released a study last week comparing counties across the United States by measuring local crime rates and school quality relative to their effective property tax rates. Among the city’s five boroughs Queens homeowners fared the best in terms of value.
Queens ranked ninth out of New York state’s 62 counties and was one of two counties within the city to make it in the top 10 in terms of value.
With its 0.84 percent property tax rate, it received an eight out of 10 school rating, and had 1,734 crimes per 100,000 people, according to the July 27 study.
In comparison, the statewide average rate for property taxes is 1.65 percent, according to SmartAsset. Outside the city, tax rates in New York counties exceed 2.5 percent.
Queens had a better school rating then Richmond County (Staten Island), which had a seven out of 10 school rating, 1,531 crimes per 100,000 people and .87 percent in property taxes, according to the study. Kings County (Brooklyn) had a .65 percent property tax, a nine out of 10 school rating, but 2,2276 crimes per 100,000 crimes were committed there.
New York County had a .88 percent tax rate, a 10 out of 10 school rating, but 3,183 crimes per 100,000 were reported there. The Bronx had a .95 percent property tax rate, a six out of 10 school rating and 2,540 crimes per 100,000 were committed in that county.
Richmond, Kings, the Bronx and New York counties were ranked 10, 18, 40 and 55 in terms of property tax value, according to SmartAsset.
SmartAsset calculated the quality of schools by looking at the average math and reading/language arts proficiencies for all the school districts in the country. It later assessed each school by state and ranked them from one to 10 with 10 being the best.
Each county’s violent and property crimes were calculated per 100,000 residents, and the number of households, median home value and average property tax rate were used to examine the per capita property tax collected for each county.
The ratio of tax collected in comparison to crimes and school quality helped SmartAsset to determine the rankings of the different counties.
SmartAsset based its information on figures from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016 American Community Survey, the state’s Department of Education, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the State Police and the Justice Department.
Reach reporter Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose
